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“Of course I’m worried,” Cora hissed, too angry to be fright-
ened of the woman who had plagued her nightmares for years.
“Charles will die if we don’t get him help.”
“Oh, he’s going to die anyway. Didn’t you know?” Mary
looked up, her wide eyes crinkled with sympathy.
“I know he’s sick, but it doesn’t mean he has to die!”
“No, child, he’s going to die tonight.” Sig
hing heavily, Mary
sat down next to them, then put her head next to Charles’s in
Cora’s lap. Cora wanted to shove it away, but some mad, lonely
fierceness in Mary’s face stopped her.
Mary reached out and stroked Charles’s hair. “Lucky,
sweet boy.”
“Did I kill my father?” Cora whispered, staring at Mary.
Mary shifted so she looked up into Cora’s face. She frowned.
“Did you? I thought you were a nice girl.”
“That day I fell out of your tree. You told me death was chas-
ing me. I ran home and then my father died. Did it — did death
follow me and take him instead?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“You mean, you didn’t send death after me?”
Mary laughed, the sound ringing through the cave. “If I could
command death, none of us would be here.”
Cora let out a shaking breath. It wasn’t her fault, then. She
hadn’t brought tragedy to her home. It had found them all on its
own. For some reason random pain was more comforting to her
than pain that could be traced to a definite cause.
“Thank you,” she said, nodding at Mary.
“Mary, darling, come away from there.” Alden glared reproach-
fully at her, and Cora had the sudden urge to draw Mary closer.
